


The Case of the Baseball Detectives

by elephantfootprints



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, The Bang and the Clatter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 00:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elephantfootprints/pseuds/elephantfootprints
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short snippet of the lives of Pitcher Sherlock Holmes and Catcher "Doc" John Watson after they finish their baseball careers and move to London to solve crimes.</p><p>(Cracky epilogue for Earlgreytea68's fabulous Baseball AU "The Bang and the Clatter")</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Case of the Baseball Detectives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [earlgreytea68](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Bang and the Clatter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/744242) by [earlgreytea68](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68). 



> Originally submitted to Earlgreytea68's tumblr ([here](http://earlgreytea68.tumblr.com/post/57022719081/the-case-of-the-baseball-detectives)) with this preface:
> 
> "So I was thinking about The Bang and the Clatter and imagining Sherlock and John’s life if they moved to London at the end to solve crimes for New Scotland Yard. It made me quite sad to think of them doing it without Lestrade, for as much as I can convince myself that obviously Mrs Hudson will move to London and buy a flat for the boys to rent, it seems a bit of a stretch to think that Lestrade will manage to make it there, get employed by NSY and become a DI in a timely fashion. So I wrote this silly little story to show how they would still involve him, and then it became much longer than I expected. So, uh, thank you for your lovely stories and I hope you enjoy!"

“Another unsolvable locked room murder mystery.” DI Sterling sighed, looking around the room. “Third one this week. This guy is obviously some kind of genius, we’ll never catch him.”

“We going to call it another suicide?” Sergeant Mason asked.

“We’ll have to, or we’ll never hear the end of it,” the DI said. “The chief inspector is already hounding me and the press are raring for some police incompetence stories. Can you get the evidence to add up, Dave?”

Dave, the medical officer gave a cocky smile. “You know it boss, I’m the best in the business.”

Dave circled the corpse, pulling on blue nitrile gloves. “If you sort of squint a bit, it looks an awful lot like he bashed his own head back against the water pipe, and then sort of stumbled over here and, using some complex system of wires, managed to rig up a gun to shoot himself when he lay down, which would then immediately unwind itself and fling the gun out the window, which would shut and lock itself.”

“Brilliant, just brilliant as always,” Sterling said, walking over to shake Dave’s hand. 

“There’s a reason they call us Scotland Yard’s finest.”

Just then, the door burst open. 

“I’m sorry John,” the tall, pale dark haired stranger said. “I know we agreed to knock and ask nicely and all that rubbish you take so seriously, but seriously! A wire system that makes a gun fire, then fling it self out a window which is self-shutting and locking! I could feel the IQ of the entire block dropping with every word out of that imbecile’s mouth.”

“It did sound a bit far-fetched, I will grant you that,” John agreed.

“Who the bloody hell are you?” Sterling asked.

“And what are you doing contaminating my crime scene?” Dave demanded.

“Sherlock Holmes, and crime scene is right,” Sherlock said. “Allowing you to work for NSY is a positively criminal offence. Windows that know when to shut and lock themselves? Honestly! Not to mention that this crime is hardly unsolvable, I’ve formulated at least fourteen possible explanations, none of which involve fantastical suicides. It’s clearly murder!”

“Look here, now you can’t just come onto my crime scene and tell my team how to do their jobs!” Sterling said. “Clear off both of you, before I arrest you myself.”

Sherlock groaned and whipped out his phone.

“Greg Lestrade speaking,” the phone announced.

“Lestrade? It’s Sherlock,” Sherlock said impatiently. “I need you to convince this sham of a police officer to let me solve his crime.”

“Sherlock, you know that’s not really my division,” Lestrade said.

“I don’t see why not,” Sherlock said. “This is my career, you’ve always managed my career.”

“Fine, I’ll see what I can do,” Lestrade said. “Hand me over.”

Sherlock switched the phone to speaker.

“Detective Inspector Sterling speaking,” Sterling said hesitantly.

“Detective Inspector, hi, this is Greg Lestrade, manager of the Austin Irregulars? You may have heard of us, we won an important baseball game not too long ago,” Lestrade said.

“Okay, but what does that have to do with this madman in a coat and his short friend?” Sterling said. 

“That madman is Sherlock Holmes, best pitcher I’ve ever seen, and an absolute deductive genius. Give the man ten minutes, avoid strangling him and I can guarantee you he’ll solve the case. And the short man? That’s Doctor John Watson, catcher, pitcher diagnostician and an American hero. He can identify your pitching problems after one throw, give him a try, he’s a marvel,” Lestrade said.

“Thanks Greg,” John said.

“No worries,” Lestrade said. “I’m sending you tickets to our first game next season, any chance you’ll make it?”

“Provided we don’t get caught up in any cases and I’m not being arrested for killing Sherlock we should,” John said.

“Great, hopefully see you then,” Lestrade said. “DI Sterling, give Sherlock a try, I promise you it will be worth it.”

The line went dead. Sherlock pocketed his phone triumphantly. “There you have it, so can I solve your murder yet?”

“It can’t hurt to give him a try,” Sergeant Mason said earnestly. “Surely anything is better than covering it up as a suicide.”

“Won’t take me two minutes to kit him up to avoid contamination,” Dave said. “And while I do that, Doc Watson can diagnose your pitching, eh? Could be a bit of fun?”

“Fine,” Sterling ground out. “But you have ten minutes and then you’re gone. And you’ll have to sign forms saying you won’t talk to anyone about this, it’s not strictly legal to have civilians on crime scenes.”

“Excellent!” Sherlock said, rubbing his hands together gleefully. His face quickly turned sour when he saw the blue suit Dave was handing him, but said nothing as he zipped himself in. John pulled a baseball out of his pocket and handed it to Sterling, before heading over to the other side of the room.

“Just throw me a nice an easy one,” John said.

Sterling rolled his eyes and lobbed the ball at John. Sherlock looked on intently.

“Ah, too much spin there, and I’ll wager you’ve got a sore shoulder,” John said thoughtfully. “I’d guess late night doing desk work, but that doesn’t explain it all. The throw was weak, and you’re a small man, so I’m afraid there’s not really much chance of a baseball career in your future.”

“You’ve crushed all my hopes and dreams,” Sterling deadpanned. He glanced at his watch. “Seven minutes left, Mr Holmes.”

Sherlock yanked on the blue nitrile gloves before diving at the body. His fingers skimmed over everything, lingering over the blunt force trauma wound and he sniffed at the gun shot. Then he stalked around the room, studying the window and door, poking at the locks of each.

“Right, well, I think I’ve got everything,” Sherlock said. “The locked door mystery is fairly self-evident. The lock has clearly been tampered with, rigged so as to jam when it was pulled shut, giving the impression of being locked. As for the murder, child’s play. The wound was delivered by an solid pipe at a slow velocity and high angle, so you’re looking for either a woman, or a smaller weaker man. When the blow to the head by the pipe failed to kill her, the attacker pulled out a gun, most likely police or army issue, and shot. She died quickly, demonstrating that the attacker possessed great knowledge of how to inflict fatal gunshots. Finally of course are hairs from a dog, clearly not the victim, she was allergic as demonstrated by the slight reddening where the fur touches her skin. I would guess either a golden labrador or golden retriever.”

Sherlock whirled around to face Sterling. Sherlock stared at Sterling hard before crouching down to remove a few golden fibres from Sterling’s pants. He held them in out to show John.

“What do you think, John?” Sherlock said. “A small, weak man, who owns a gun, has knowledge of how to shoot to kill, from an army or police background, owns a medium sized golden coated dog and, most suspiciously, has just ordered his team to cover up the murder.”

Dave and Mason gasped.

“Brilliant!” John said. “Absolutely fantastic!”

“Thank you John,” Sherlock said. “Anything to add, Sterling?”

Sterling opened his mouth, shut it, swallowed hard and ran for the door. John launched himself across the room and dived on top of him, rather effectively halting Sterling’s exit.

“Bit like diving for the home plate at the end of a home run,” John said.

“I told you the skills were fairly transferable,” Sherlock said.

“I don’t know why more of us don’t double up really,” John said.

“Because people are-”

“Idiots, I know,” John said, looking at Sherlock affectionately.

“No matter, we’re doing it, and that’s all that matters really,” Sherlock said. “And I managed to solve the crime with time to spare.” 

Sherlock looked very satisfied.

“Oh yeah,” John said. “Just how much time?”

Sherlock glanced at his watch with a smirk.

“I’d say about 307 seconds.”


End file.
